Border wall threat

The president's barrier may never get built, but we have to take him seriously.

A map shows the trails and lakes in Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge near Alamo, where engineers have taken soil samples on the levee in preparation to build Trump's Wall.

Photo: Bob Owen, Staff

Just south of the little Rio Grande Valley town of Alamo, on the banks of the Rio Grande, is the 2,028-acre Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, created by the National Park Service in 1943 for the protection of migratory birds. Managed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the refuge attracts some 400 species, not to mention thousands of birdwatchers from all over North America who come to see buff-bellied hummingbirds, great kiskadees and other species that can't be seen anywhere else in North America.

Ten minutes from ubiquitous strip malls and big city-busy freeways, the refuge is one of the last pieces of native habitat in the Valley. Inhabiting the thick brush beneath a dense canopy of mesquite, huisache, sabol palm and moss-draped ebony trees are rabbits, coyotes, armadillos, Texas tortoises and bobcats, as well as the endangered ocelot and jaguarundi. It's also home to some 300 butterfly species.

On a muggy afternoon last week, a flock of bronze cowbirds skittered through the branches of an old mesquite tree. Cottontail rabbits allowed a hiker to approach within a few feet before they scampered into the brush. Nearby, the green Rio Grande flowed silently toward the sea.

Santa Ana also is part of a wildlife riparian corridor that Fish and Wildlife Service has acquired piecemeal during the last 30 years at a cost of more than $30 million. As Melissa Del Bosque of the Texas Observer initially reported, this subtropical sliver, one of the most biologically diverse areas in the country, is about to face an implacable invasive species: the first stretch of Donald Trump's multi-billion-dollar wall.

Even though Congress hasn't appropriated funds for the president's border boondoggle, the Department of Homeland Security is already preparing to build atop river levees through the refuge and other environmentally sensitive areas nearby. Last week the House approved a spending bill that contained $1.6 billion to build segments of the wall in Texas and California. Construction is scheduled to begin as early as November.

The bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, where U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has expressed reservations about ramming a wall through environmentally sensitive areas like the Santa Ana refuge. He has advocated for more use of ground sensors, drones and technology rather than a wall.

Cornyn surely must be aware that Trump's Wall would essentially block wildlife from getting to the river, their primary source of water. Birds can fly over the barrier; ocelots can't. Environmentalists say the Wall likely would push the small spotted cat into extinction in the United States.

"These refuges are national treasures and sacred places, and we have to do everything we can to stop the Trump administration from putting this wall into place," U.S. Rep. Filomen Vela said recently. The Brownsville Democrat accuses Homeland Security officials of operating in secret.

As the ocelot disappears and an invaluable refuge itself becomes endangered, we would do well to remember the origin of Trump's "big, beautiful wall." As Bloomberg Businessweek correspondent Joshua Green reveals in his new book, "Devil's Bargain," the Wall had less to do with undocumented immigrants and human traffickers and more to do with Trump's brain. It was a mnemonic device his campaign advisers came up with "for keeping their attention-addled boss on message."

In other words, bombast about a border wall was much easier to deliver to red cap-wearing devotees than a serious and thoughtful plan for comprehensive immigration reform.

Trump's Wall may never get built - just as transgender soldiers may never get drummed out of the military - but we have to take him seriously. With Big Bend National Park, Big Bend State Park, the Lake Amistad area and other environmentally sensitive areas along the 2,000-mile border potentially in Homeland Security's sights, we can't take the chance that something won't happen because it shouldn't. The man in the White House may not have thought seriously about the issues, but the rest of us, elected officials included, have to be dead serious about his addled notions. Congressman Vela has it right: When you're dealing with an opportunistic xenophobe, resistance is the only response.